


Take it Back

by cnroth



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Angst, Episode: s03e15 Coda, F/M, Lake George, This might hurt a little
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-26
Updated: 2020-02-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:01:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22914424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cnroth/pseuds/cnroth
Summary: On a whim, Kathryn suggested a moonlit sail on Lake George. She never intended for it to turn out this way.
Relationships: Chakotay/Kathryn Janeway, Kathryn Janeway/Mark Johnson
Comments: 14
Kudos: 54





	Take it Back

**Author's Note:**

> _Maybe won’t you take it back_  
>  _Say you were trying to make me laugh_  
>  _And nothing has to change today_  
>  _You didn’t mean to say, “I love you”_  
> 
> 
> _—i love you by Billie Eilish_

I used to write him letters.

Mark is the third man I ever loved, but my love for him was by far the deepest of any of them. It’s a strange thing, too, because I knew him my entire life but only came to think of him that way much later. Sometimes I wonder how things would be different if I’d fallen for him first. Would I still be here, in the Delta Quadrant, seventy thousand lightyears away from him?

It’s been more than two years since I gave the order that stranded us here. Surely, Mark thinks I’m dead. Perhaps he’s even started dating again. I wouldn’t blame him. I don’t have the luxury of dating, but that doesn’t mean I hold him to the same standard.

Except I’ve already transgressed that parameter, and now I fear I’ve ruined everything.

Six weeks into our stay on New Earth, Chakotay confessed to having feelings for me, although he didn’t clarify exactly what those feelings were. I never made any such confession. I couldn’t bring myself to think about it.

In the end, it was a moot point. Upon our return to _Voyager_ , we were in agreement that, for the sake of professionalism and our mission, we had to set aside any feelings that developed during our stay on the planet. 

Since then, Chakotay has grown to become one of my dearest friends. I rely on him for so much, and other than Tuvok he is the only person on _Voyager_ I can be myself around without the captain’s mask.

Will it still be that way after what I’ve done tonight?

It seemed innocent at first. Escaping death always makes me feel alive, so when Chakotay came to my ready room with a rose and insisted I should relax, I impulsively suggested a moonlit sail on Lake George. Before long, we were alone on the polished-wood deck of a sailboat with a bottle of real champagne and nothing but stars and water around us.

The champagne was gone and the shoreline well out of sight when he confessed how terrified he was that he’d lost me for good. His eyes shimmered in the moonlight like the surface of the lake, and I wanted more than anything to make his pain go away. So I set my empty flute on the deck, leaned in, and kissed him.

Beneath my fingers, his muscles seized. No doubt I’d taken him by surprise. But then his pillowy lips pressed harder against mine and my already-fuzzy mind emptied of everything else. 

He didn’t resist at all when I threaded my tongue between his lips, licking into the wet heat of his mouth. His hands found their way to my hair, unclasping the barrette so the strands could slide freely through his fingers. 

Suddenly, it was as if I’d been starving for days and was presented with a feast. I dragged his zipper down and pushed his jacket away from his shoulders. Next came the turtleneck, which I hastily discarded. He peeled off his undershirt and tossed that aside as well, then began relieving me of my own uniform between desperate, hungry kisses.

“There’s a bedroom below decks,” he murmured as his lips latched onto my neck.

“No time for that,” I groaned, stepping out of my pants and lowering myself to the deck. “I need you now.”

He growled, and soon he was above me, pushing deep inside, rocking against me like the boat against the lake. I curled my fingers into the firm flesh of his ass, goading him on, bucking and grinding against him as the knot coiled tighter and tighter inside of me until the only stars I saw were the ones bursting behind my eyelids.

We held each other there on the deck when we were done, the boat sailing along as if nothing had changed. Except everything had changed, because somewhere in the midst of a whispered conversation between the wind and the water came three words I thought I’d never hear again.

“I love you, Kathryn.”

Mark would have called me _Kath_.

But this wasn’t Mark. This was Chakotay. My first officer. My confidant. My best friend.

Someone I didn’t dare let myself love.

At that moment, I froze. Maybe if I kept quiet, he’d think I hadn’t heard, and we could pretend it never happened. But after several seconds, he lifted my chin to meet his eyes, and the fear I saw there made me wish I’d never suggested the outing at all.

“Kathryn?”

My mouth fell open, though I don’t know what I could have meant to say. What was there to be said? Nine months ago, I told Chakotay we could never be together that way. After all this time, I still hoped to go home to Mark. Besides, it would be inappropriate for us to be involved given our roles on the ship and our duty to the crew. Chakotay knew these things. We discussed them, and he’d agreed wholeheartedly.

Yet there we were on a date I hadn’t intended to be romantic, naked and tangled up in each other with him confessing his love.

I sat up and grabbed my pants. “I have to go.” 

He sat up, too. “What? Kathryn—“

“It’s late.” Quickly, I collected my clothes. “We both need to get some sleep.”

“Can’t we at least talk about what just happened?”

“Nothing happened,” I snapped, clasping my bra and tugging my undershirt into place.

Chakotay scoffed. “I beg to differ. Is this because I said I love you?”

My fingers fumbled as I searched for the sleeves of my turtleneck and turned it right-side out. “Is that true?”

“Of course it is.”

I fastened the shirt behind my back and jammed the hem into my pants, then slid into my jacket. “This can’t happen, Chakotay. Not ever again. So let’s just forget that it did, alright?” 

The look on his face was pure betrayal, but he nodded and said, “Alright, Kathryn. If that’s what you want, then consider it forgotten.”

“Thank you, Commander.” I zipped my jacket, scooped up my barrette, and ordered the computer for an exit. “Have a good night.” With that, I made my escape.

Whatever else he might have had to say, I didn’t want to hear it. Instead, I imagined him insisting he’d spoken impulsively, and he didn’t mean it the way it sounded. He was lonely, and we’d just been through a traumatic ordeal. Such things make people act in ways they normally wouldn’t, seek solace in things they shouldn’t. It was only natural we’d take comfort in each other. But that’s all it was. He cared for me as a friend and a colleague, nothing more.

I can’t bear to let myself think of him as anything else, because the truth is I do love him, and that scares me more than the very real prospect of my own death.

Instead, I sit in front of my computer in darkened quarters listing out all of the things I remember about Mark—all the things I love most, everything I miss. It takes at least an hour to catalogue, and when I finally stop, it’s far from complete. Then I try to write a letter to Mark explaining everything, but the words won’t come. 

I used to write him letters, but it’s been so long I don’t know where to begin anymore.

As I lay in bed later with my hand between my legs, trying to hold onto the memory of Mark making love to me, all I can see is bronze skin, dark hair, and a tribal tattoo. He presses me against a polished-wood deck and slides deep inside me, rocking his hips in just the right way to make me sing. Around us, water slaps against the boat as his deep, rumbling voice murmurs my name.

 _Kathryn_.

It’s just one more thing to add to the list of reasons why I’ll never deserve the man I lost when I stranded us out here so very far away from home.


End file.
